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en-US2012 - VOA60Tue, 31 Mar 2015 16:53:04 -0400Pangea CMS – VOAAs Afghan President, Ghani Continues Tech AdvocacyPrior to assuming Afghanistan's top political office, President Ashraf Ghani, as an academic and World Bank expert on state building, wrote about how technology could help weak states cost-effectively improve governance.
“The advent of new information technology has overcome one of the greatest constraints in human history — the ability to process large amounts of information and identify patterns ... technology has become a mediator for a huge range of human relationships by creating new forms of organization for security and businesses,” Ghani wrote in Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World, a 2008 book he co-authored with Clare Lockhart.
Now he's attempting to put some of these ideas into action. Over the past few weeks, for example, Ghani has used Skype and Google Hangout to chair "town hall"-style meetings in Herat, Kandahar, Kunduz and Khost, where, via large monitors, he virtually engaged dozens of citizens.
Not without its technical flaws, Ghani's video conferencing sessions represent a kind of communications benchmark that facilitates direct dialogue between the Afghan leader in his high-walled, high-security palace, and citizens in far-flung areas.
According to Ghani administration officials, the president plans to extend the practice to 33 provinces across Afghanistan.
In an informal talk with journalists in Kabul last month, Ghani said the use of free communications technology would not only streamline meeting schedules, but save the national treasury over US$2.5 million in presidential travel expenses alone. Security requirements make presidential travel within Afghanistan extremely expensive.
“It was an interesting experience,” said Ahmad Shah Ataal, who attended a video conference in Kandahar city on October 16.
“Although it was not anything near to a real meeting, a lot of people spoke to the president and he also talked and issued some orders,” he added, referring to a presidential directive to the governor of Kandahar, in which Ghani, via Skype, called for the re-arrest of a powerful drug trafficker who was set free extrajudicially.
Traditional interaction
The video-call technology was first brought to the Afghan Presidential Palace, the Arg, in 2002 by former Afghan President Hamid Karzai who used it primarily to communicate with the George W. Bush White House. Karzai, who stepped down in September, video-chatted less frequently with President Barack Obama. Ghani and his Chief Executive Officer Dr. Abdullah had their first video-call with President Obama on October 22.
Ghani has also used a secure video conference line to communicate with commanders of the Afghan National Army units in different parts of the country.
“Most of President Ghani’s exchange with provincial authorities via Skype and Google is available on public records so there is little concern about its security from hacking and surveillance,” said Mohammad H. Qayoumi, the Afghan-born president of San José State University.
“I’m sure national security and other confidential issues are not discussed on these free technology channels,” he added.
Despite Ghani's history of advocating online communications technology, his office made an effort to emphasize the value he still places on face-to-face interaction, release footage of more than 20 meetings with delegates from around the country over the past month.
He also barged into a military hospital in Kabul a late evening and fired several doctors who were not on duty.
As Qayoumi put it, principal aspects of Afghan politics will always be the product of lengthy tea-drinking sessions that online communications platforms, no matter how sophisticated, cannot entirely replace.
Rapid development
In 2001, most Afghans had to travel to Pakistan to place international phone calls because the service was not available at home. In the past decade, more than $2 billion has been invested in Afghanistan’s telecommunication infrastructure and more than 90 percent of Afghans have access to mobile phones and some 30 percent have access to the internet, according to the Afghan Ministry of Telecommunication & Information Technology
Even Taliban insurgents, despite their utmost efforts to block development projects, benefit from the advancements, frequently communicating via mobile phones and online platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
Akmal Dawi is a managing editor with VOA’s Afghan Service. He previously worked for the UN and BBC World Service in Afghanistan. He tweets from @Kabul3.
http://www.voanews.com/content/afhganistan-president-ghani-video-conference-technology-governance/2506576.html
http://www.voanews.com/content/afhganistan-president-ghani-video-conference-technology-governance/2506576.htmlMon, 03 Nov 2014 15:50:26 -0500AsiaScience & Technologywebdesk@voanews.com (Akmal Dawi)http://www.voanews.com/content/afhganistan-president-ghani-video-conference-technology-governance/2506576.html#relatedInfoContainerSome Female Afghan Journalists Slip Back Behind BurqaNegeena Anwari works for Hewad Television, a private channel in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar Province, the birthplace and spiritual home of the Taliban where every woman is a potential target.
But for Anwari, Taliban guns are a less vexing problem than the daily harassment she endures as a publicly recognizable broadcast anchor in Afghanistan's second-most populous city.
“Our traditional problems and harassments are bigger than our security problems,” says the young journalist, explaining that concerns about national security, while legitimate, don't discriminate between gender or profession.
“The moment I walk out of my home, I am bombarded by verbal intimidations and abuse by almost every man I face," she says. "They insult me for appearing on TV and some even call for my death.”
Free media has boomed in post-Taliban Afghanistan — even in Kandahar, former base of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban’s fugitive spiritual leader. And while it is unclear exactly how many female journalists work here, Nageena’s problems are not exceptional.
According to local news radio host Haseena Ahmadi, female Afghan journalists represent a small enough professional minority to become well known throughout the regions they cover, thereby falling prey to myriad threats, harassment and discrimination.
“Parents don’t permit their daughters to become journalists [in particular] because female journalists soon turn popular and that puts them in lots of troubles,” Ahmadi says. Unlike other female Afghan professionals targeted by Kandahar-based extremists — the Taliban have claimed responsibility for assassinating Lt. Col. Malalai Kakar, head of Kandahar's department of crimes against women and the country's most prominent policewoman, and multiple women in elected office — the violence isn't restricted to the southern provinces.
Even in the relatively peaceful north of Afghanistan, some female reporters are facing the very same problems as their colleagues along the Pakistan border.
“People look at female journalists as bad girls who have no morality,” Saleha Fahim, a reporter with Arezo TV in the northern Balkh Province, told VOA Dari. Soma, another journalist who goes by one name and works for a private TV channel in Balkh Province, says she clads herself from head to toe in order to avert harassment on the streets.
“We’re forced to wear burqa,” she says.
While Afghan development indicators have shown marked improvement over the past decade, Fahim says the situation for female journalists has deteriorated over the last two years in particular.
A recent report by The New York Times calls 2014 "by far the deadliest year for the news media here since the fall of the Taliban," and reports the Sept. 16 stabbing death of 27-year-old Palwasha Tokhi, the seventh journalist killed in the country this year. Tokhi, formerly of Mazar-i-Sharif's Bayan radio, was fatally assaulted by an unidentified assailant outside of her home.
According to media support organizations, dozens of journalists have been killed on Afghan soil since 2002. What's less clear, however, is exactly how many female Afghan journalists have lost their lives since the U.S. invasion.
And even though the exact motives behind the killings of several prominent female journalists — Shakiba Sanaga Amaj, Nazifa Zaki and Shaima Rezayee — are unclear, it is known that none perished in random war-related incidents.
Unpromising future
The four journalists interviewed for this story all said that even though a career change might mitigate their plight — traditionally, Afghan women assume relatively lower-profile jobs than men — reporting is worth the risk.
“I love journalism despite that in being a journalist I face risks and threats every day,” said Anwari, the Kandahar-based television anchor. “Some days I hear men warning me that it would be my last day, but I say 'let it be the last day in my life as a journalist.'”
Armed violence shows no signs of slowing in Afghanistan, where concern abounds over the planned, gradual US disengagement, which, some say, could reverse gains made by women’s rights advocates.
As donors shift their focus to other hotspots in the Middle East and Africa, Afghan media outlets — which, thus far, have mostly survived with foreign funding — are already seeing financial resources dwindle.
“The general feeling is that media will struggle to survive,” says Bob Dietz, Asia program director at Committee to Protect Journalists, adding that the Afghan media landscape is likely to shrink in coming years.
Future employment prospects look particularly grim for women. “Many are the first to be let go when outlets downsize,” said Dietz.
“For women journalists, it’s a double-indemnity situation: Not only are journalists under pressure, but as women they suffer yet another source of discrimination.”
Akmal Dawi is a managing editor with VOA’s Afghan Service. He previously worked for the UN and BBC World Service in Afghanistan. He tweets from @Kabul3.
http://www.voanews.com/content/afghanistan-female-journalists-reporters-taliban-womens-rights/2480999.html
http://www.voanews.com/content/afghanistan-female-journalists-reporters-taliban-womens-rights/2480999.htmlSat, 11 Oct 2014 23:02:51 -0400Asiawebdesk@voanews.com (Akmal Dawi)http://www.voanews.com/content/afghanistan-female-journalists-reporters-taliban-womens-rights/2480999.html#relatedInfoContainerCash and Heaven: How Afghan War Victims Are CompensatedThe administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has spent more than $45 million from the national treasury over the last eight years to compensate civilian casualties of the U.S.-led war, although most were caused by Taliban insurgents.
Amid the ongoing drawdown of U.S. forces, day-to-day conflict remains a reality for many people in Afghanistan, where the death or injury of a household breadwinner can be catastrophic.
“For each martyred, 100,000 Afghanis [about $1,800] and ... 50,000 Afghanis have been paid [for each wounded],” Karzai spokesman Aimal Faizi told VOA Dari service, explaining that a total 12,212 payments have been allocated to families of “martyrs,” with another 11,642 issued to wounded individuals.
But Karzai’s condolence payments aren't limited to victims of military operations by pro-government forces, and they aren't restricted exclusively to cash remittances. A vast majority of recipients were harmed in Taliban attacks or U.S.-NATO counterinsurgency operations, and, moreover, the Afghan government’s ad hoc sympathy program has funded Hajj pilgrimage costs of over 4,400 individuals, resulted in the distribution of land, facilitated the creation of educational scholarships and resulted in reimbursement for medical expenses.
But the government program hasn't reached every civilian casualty of the war. At least 15,628 civilian deaths — along with many thousands of injuries — were recorded by the UN from January 2009 to June 2014 alone.
U.S.-NATO payments
As the U.S. winds down the longest war in its history, civilian casualties resulting from U.S.-led counterinsurgency operations have dropped markedly. UN figures show only one percent of civilian casualties reported in the first half of 2014 — 1,564 deaths, 3,289 wounded — were caused by international forces.
The U.S. military's sharp reduction in the killing and injuring of Afghan civilians has, beyond the obvious political and moral advantages, palpable economic benefits. Fewer American taxpayer dollars are spent on civilian victims of anti-Taliban operations now than before.
While Kabul-based U.S.-NATO spokesperson Jennifer Bragg says the alliance doesn't have “centralized figures” to show how much it paid to compensate for civilian casualties over the past years, it was reported in 2011 that U.S. military had spent millions.
In one of the largest payments ever made, families of the 16 civilians shot dead by Sergeant Robert Bales on March 11, 2014 in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, were each paid $46,000. In general, however, U.S.-NATO forces have paid $2,500 for every civilian killed and $1,000 for any one injured in their military operations.
Amnesty International has criticized the U.S. for its alleged failure in delivering justice to Afghan civilian victims. In a recent report, the UK-based human rights group accused U.S.-NATO forces of “killing thousands” of Afghan civilians and failing to bring those responsible to justice and accountability.
Taliban’s promise of heaven
The UN figures attribute over 70 percent of all civilian casualties in Afghanistan to Taliban insurgents. Taliban’s suicide attacks, improvised bombings and targeted assassinations account for most of the UN reported civilian casualties.
The insurgent group, however, rejects these reports and says its fighters only target pro-government Afghan and foreign forces, civilian government employees and contractors.
In very rare cases when Taliban acknowledged civilian casualties, the group issued tersely worded regrets, saying the victims were “martyrs” who would be rewarded by Allah in the heavens. Although Diya, or blood money, is obligatory in Islamic jurisprudence, the militant organization does not pay civilian victims — killed or injured.
According to the UN reports, Taliban insurgents have caused more than 11,000 civilian deaths, and wounded thousands more, over the past five years. If Afghan government standards for civilian casualty compensation — $1,800 for each death; $900 for each wounded — applied to Taliban militants, the group would owe millions in financial payments to Afghan families.
http://www.voanews.com/content/afghanistan-war-collateral-casualty-compensation-karzai-nato-us-taliban/2431009.html
http://www.voanews.com/content/afghanistan-war-collateral-casualty-compensation-karzai-nato-us-taliban/2431009.htmlThu, 28 Aug 2014 10:54:59 -0400Asiawebdesk@voanews.com (Akmal Dawi)http://www.voanews.com/content/afghanistan-war-collateral-casualty-compensation-karzai-nato-us-taliban/2431009.html#relatedInfoContainerTaliban Threats Shutter Hundreds of Afghan Voting CentersHundreds of voting centers in Afghanistan, mostly in the country's volatile south and east, will be closed due to security concerns as Afghans head to the polls for Saturday's presidential runoff.
Some 6,300 polling stations, most of them segregated for male and female voters, will be open as presidential frontrunners Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, former foreign minister and anti-Taliban figure, and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, former finance minister and World Bank official, seek to clinch the country's top office. The runoff follows first round election on April 5, in which Abdullah claimed 45 percent of the vote and Ghani secured 31.56 percent.
According to Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC), more than 800 voting centers will be shut in Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul, Urozgan, Ghazni, Nooristan, Nangarhar, Farah, Badghis, Kunar, Jozjan, Ghor, Saripol and Badakhshan provinces. IEC officials tell VOA Dari Service that although the overwhelming majority of these voting centers are closed due to Taliban threats, some stations have been shuttered due to non-security reasons such as geographic inaccessibility.
The Taliban have repeatedly warned that fighters and suicide attackers will target anyone involved in the electoral process, calling the entire election "illegitimate" and staged by Western powers to install a puppet leader. In addition to attacking IEC offices, insurgents last week bombed Abdullah's convoy as it moved between campaign events in Kabul, killing 12 people including several civilians.
Charges of Pashtun marginalization
According to Ghani spokesman Abbas Noyan, many of the more than 800 defunct voting centers are in Pashtun areas where Ghani defeated his first round rivals.
"We're seriously concerned about the closure of these voting centers because they're mostly in provinces where the majority of voters support us," he said. "If these voting centers remain closed, some 300,000 of our supporters will be deprived from a process which has to be inclusive and nationwide."
Ghani's campaign officials have lodged complaints with the IEC and asked President Hamid Karzai to consider opening some of these centers, but the requests have not been granted.
Fazlrahman Orya, a spokesman for Abdullah's camp, said polling must not take place in insecure areas.
"Where there is no security there should be no voting," Orya told VOA Dari, adding that polling without security would be fraudulent.
Jed Ober, director of programs at Democracy International, said closing down voting centers in insecure areas is categorized as a "fraud-preventing" measure.
"The decision to close a polling station should be based solely on whether or not that station can be secured so that voters can safely participate free from violence and intimidation," Ober said.
No 'winner-take-all' outcome
While analysts say the candidates are currently locked in a statistical dead heat, the country's election laws say runoff results must declare one candidate victorious.
The United Nations and the U.S. have called on both candidates to refrain from fraud and support the country's fledging electoral institutions.
"It is our fervent hope that the two candidates, with the future of their country in their hands at this unprecedented time, will not seek a winner-take-all outcome," James Cunningham, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, said on Wednesday.
Both candidates have also been called upon to accept the final results of the election and avoid plunging the country into a political and constitutional crisis if he is not declared the winner.
"Act responsibly, not only as politicians, but as citizens of this country," Jan Kubis, the UN envoy in Afghanistan, said in a statement addressed at the two candidates.
Despite prior security threats, almost 7 million Afghans, 36 percent of them female, turned out for April's inconclusive first-round election.http://www.voanews.com/content/taliban-threats-shutter-hundreds-of-afghan-voting-centers/1936491.html
http://www.voanews.com/content/taliban-threats-shutter-hundreds-of-afghan-voting-centers/1936491.htmlFri, 13 Jun 2014 13:43:24 -0400Asiawebdesk@voanews.com (Akmal Dawi)http://www.voanews.com/content/taliban-threats-shutter-hundreds-of-afghan-voting-centers/1936491.html#relatedInfoContainerAfghan Runoff Campaign Starts Amid Fear and HopeThe two frontrunners in Afghanistan’s presidential election will start political campaigning on Thursday in their final bid to succeed President Hamid Karzai.
Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, a former Afghan foreign minister and anti-Taliban figure who won 45 percent of votes in the inconclusive first round, and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, a former John Hopkins University lecturer who secured 31.56 percent, are competing in the runoff. Each of the two presidential hopefuls has two running mates, and none is a female.
Amidst rampant insecurity and intimidation about seven million voters – almost 60 percent of registered voters turned out for the first round of the election on April 5. Thirty-four percent of voters were women, according to Afghanistan Independent Election Commission (IEC).
The political campaigning will go on until 11 June followed by two days of “silence” and the nationwide polling will be conducted on June 14.
In a bid to increase the turnout, IEC officials have decided to open more than 4,000 new voting stations across the country. The democratic exercise will cost$18 million which has been provided by donors such as the U.S.
Preliminary election results will be announced on July 2 and after a two-week complaint and adjudication process, final results will be announced on July 22. By early August, if all things go as planned, the new Afghan president will be inaugurated.
At the top of the next Afghan president’s agenda will be signing the long-delayed Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with Washington which will pave the way for thousands of U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan after 2014. President Karzai has refused to sign the BSA saying the U.S. must help kickstart peace talks with the Taliban and restore stability in Afghanistan before he would sign.
Ethnicization
Aside from Taliban threats, some observers fear the runoff could exacerbate ethnic tensions and push Afghanistan towards political crisis at a critical time.
Despite his mixed ethnic roots Dr. Abdullah, the leading candidate, is widely referred to as a Tajik candidate with historic antagonism towards the Taliban, a mostly Pashtun insurgent group fighting the Afghan Government. Some Afghans are concerned that Dr. Abdullah’s victory could push Pashtuns away from the government in Kabul and make some consider joining the Taliban, the Washington Post reported on May 18.
The other leading candidate, Ashraf Ghani, is perceived to have mostly Pashtun and Uzbek endorsements but he lacks support among Tajiks, Afghanistan’s second largest ethnic minority.
“We’re particularly concerned about the ethnicization of the election in the second round,” Jandad Spenghar, director of an Afghan election watchdog, told VOA adding that the number of people voting on an ethnic basis would be higher than others.
“Further intensification of ethnic divisions would create an environment for fraud and challenge the entire process,” Spenghar warned.
Ronald Neumann, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and current President of the American Academy of Diplomacy, said the runoff would not be competed entirely on ethnic lines because several Pashtun politicians had endorsed Dr. Abdullah.
“The danger is still there,” Neumann added.
Taliban threats
As candidates launch their political campaigns the Taliban have vowed they would embark on a terror campaign by attacking election workers campaign offices, candidates and voters.
The turnout of about seven million voters in the first round has largely been interpreted as a strategic failure by the Taliban and the insurgent group has reportedly appointed a new operational commander to try disrupting the runoff on June 14.
“The enemy wants to revenge for their failure in the first round,” Umer Daudzai, Afghan interior minister, said on Wednesday in a meeting of police officials from all the 34 provinces of Afghanistan.
Daudzai said Afghan security forces stand ready to secure the runoff but on the same day over a dozen Afghan police forces were killed in Taliban attacks in different parts of the country.
The U.S. has spent tens of millions of dollars on the Afghan elections but there is not much Washington can do to quell the political challenges facing the Afghan election runoff, according to Ronald Neumann.
“It’s really now in the hands of Afghans. Afghans spent a long time wondering whether the foreigners would take their hands off and the answer is yes,” Neumann said.http://www.voanews.com/content/afghan-runoff-campaign-starts-amid-fear-and-hope/1919785.html
http://www.voanews.com/content/afghan-runoff-campaign-starts-amid-fear-and-hope/1919785.htmlWed, 21 May 2014 17:28:48 -0400Asiawebdesk@voanews.com (Akmal Dawi)http://www.voanews.com/content/afghan-runoff-campaign-starts-amid-fear-and-hope/1919785.html#relatedInfoContainer